


Penance

by BeesKnees



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Community: norsekink, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-30
Updated: 2011-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-26 17:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeesKnees/pseuds/BeesKnees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor has nightmares about Loki and not being there for him and fixing things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Penance

To say he mourns his brother does not aptly describe what he feels. To say he mourns means that he has some closure, some understanding of what passed between himself and Loki. That is not the truth. He stares over the edge of what is left of the bifrost quite often. Only half the time he wonders what Jane is doing. The other half, he wonders what has become of his brother. He wonders what has happened when he fell through open space and disappeared just from Thor's sight.

These thoughts start to devour Thor's mind. These dark ideas slither in when Thor cannot safeguard against them and seize his brain. They are just dreams at first. His mind plays over and over what has happened. He remembers the expression Loki wore when he thought he would tumble over. His eyes wide, his voice beseeching as he said brother - a trick it might be, but like everything Loki, it is half-truth and half-lie. He remembers how his brother's fingers unfurled from the end of the hammer, how he looked so betrayed when Odin spoke a single word.

At first it just these memories. When he closes his eyes, he sees nothing calming, just the haunting image of green eyes seared on the inside of his eyelids.

And then it steadily becomes more. It becomes so that he watches as his brother falls away. It becomes so that he must watch as Loki is torn asunder by the vastness of space around them, by the falling bits of the bifrost. He watches his brother's bone breaks, watches as the blood is squeezed from his body, the light flickering out of his perpetually glimmering eyes. He watches how Loki is forced to die alone.

He wakes in a sweat. The sheets stick to him and outside it pours. Lightning crackles across the sky. He has to wonder why Loki chose that above anything else. He wonders what has driven him to it. What has Thor failed to see? When did he fail to play the role of the big brother properly? He thought he understood his brother better than any, but he is at a loss for why Loki has done these things.

He is half a ghost himself during the days now. He refuses to sleep. He cannot bear to see Loki fall, to see him swallowed whole, to see the hatred that seeped into his gaze when he made Thor fight him.

He falls asleep by accident, unable to escape. He wakes up, reaching for where Loki let go. His eyes tilt shut for seconds and he sees Loki's grin before the coronation. He sees the two versions of his brother juxtaposed against each other. His brain struggles to track what happened in those hours.

His brother's shadow begins to dance across walls. He sees things which aren't there. Shapes which whisper to him. He cannot train, he cannot eat. Everything brings him into collision with his brother's ghost.

Finally, Frigga forces him to take a sleeping draught. For the first time in months, his mind is silent and dreams are absent from him. He wakes and feels physically rested. But the part of him that is consumed with guilt cannot wonder if this is not a crime in itself; what price is he meant to pay for not stopping Loki from falling?


End file.
